Book Review: Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

I’m a sucker for ghost and medium stories. They always make me feel all giddy. The thing with them is that, too often, they tied with romance, and romance never makes me that giddy. I’m made wrong. While Black Water Sister had romantic elements, it didn’t overpower the book. The book is about Jessamyn Teoh, who is forced to return to Malaysia with her family due to her father’s illness and their bankrupt business. She has to navigate the strange landscape of Malaysia and figure out how she fits in it and what her cultural heritage is. Suddenly, she starts to hear a voice in her head, and gradually, she figures out it is her grandmother, Ah Ma, who pushes her into her illegal business, and Jessamyn almost gets herself killed. In addition, she has left behind her girlfriend and hasn’t come out to her family. Everything is all wrong.

The book is a wonderful excursion into Malaysian culture. It was fun how Zen Cho added little facts here and there in a highly organic way. Jess having to navigate the new culture and her relatives was a perfect excuse for the information dumps. I loved the crash between the traditions and the new, especially when it came to secularism and religions of all sorts with gods and spirits that can communicate with the living. I think that was the best part of the book. It made me remember why I majored in Comparative Religion. The facts made the story more vibrant, and Jess’s struggles to fit in more real. It is hard to live in another country, but even harder when you are outside wherever you go. Jess is Malaysian in America, but she is American in Malaysia. There was one line that made me have this: yes, this should be voiced aloud more often moment. Zen Cho wrote about how Jess’s girlfriend understood that coming out wasn’t that easy because of her cultural background. That you can’t just blatantly state that: of course, you can come out damned the consequences for you or your family. She showed that Jess cared how the news would also impact her family. It perfectly illustrates how we take an individualist mindset for granted too often, and that shouldn’t be the case. It’s dangerous to value individualism over collectivism, thinking it somehow to be superior, forgetting that both have their issues and glories.

Zen Cho wrote all this with such elegance that you don’t have to get hung up on any of that. You can follow the story and enjoy the ride. Okay, the start was slow, and it almost made me want to quit reading, but as soon as Ah Ma stopped messing with her granddaughter and got her to act according to her wishes, things got interesting as Jess is more stubborn than her grandmother might like even how proud she is of the fact. The story stumbled here and there, forcing some scenes to happen, but it always ended up correcting itself to get back on the right track.

The book ended up not being so much about spirits and ghosts and being a medium, which was disappointing. But it made it all up with the other aspects, mostly with the cultural elements and the characters. I liked Jess’s complex relationship with her mother and her mother’s relationship with her husband’s family and her own, making the story feel once again more real.

Thank you for reading! Have a beautiful day ❤